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House on Haunted Hill (1999 film)
The film is set in an abandoned asylum, the Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane, where numerous murders were committed in the past, mainly the 1920s. The head of the facility, Dr. Richard B. Vannacutt (Jeffrey Combs), performed grotesque experiments and medical procedures on the patients, killing many in the process. The hospital was closed in 1931 after the patients escaped, killing almost the entire staff and burning the hospital. Vannacutt had rigged the building with numerous iron gates, activated by cranks and levers, to serve as barriers to keep patients from leaving the building, should they escape; some of these were controlled by huge, clock-like timers that wouldn't open for twelve hours. During the fire, he released these gates, keeping the inmates, employees and the fire itself contained. After several unexplained deaths during reconstruction of the facility, it was dubbed "The House on Haunted Hill". The story revolves around the disintegrating marriage of Evelyn Stockard-Price (Famke Janssen), a spoiled trophy wife, and Stephen Price (Geoffrey Rush), an amusement park mogul with a wicked sense of humor, each of whom would gladly kill the other. Evelyn fancies spectacular parties, so Stephen leases the house from the owner, Watson Pritchett (Chris Kattan), for Evelyn's Halloween birthday bash. Evelyn gives Stephen a guest list two pages long; he shreds it to spite her and then creates one of his own. The five people who show up for the party - Jennifer Jenzen (aka Sara Wolfe) (Ali Larter), Eddie Baker (Taye Diggs), Melissa Margaret Marr (Bridgette Wilson), Dr. Donald Blackburn (Peter Gallagher), and Pritchett himself - aren't the ones he invited. Neither Evelyn nor Stephen know who they are. Despite this, Price continues the party's theme, offering a million dollars to anyone who stays in the house and survives until morning, with any person not making it having his money added to the pot. Shortly afterward, the security gates are tripped, locking everyone inside and forcing them to remain there until the gates unlock in the morning. Price scolds Carl Schecter (Max Perlich), a company employee - who has developed a series of harmless traps to scare the guests— for not letting him know he planned to pull a stunt like that. Schecter said it wasn't him who did it. Price is then convinced his wife did it somehow. Shortly after, Melissa is killed by one of the ghosts when she wanders off into the basement of the house. It's revealed that the spirits themselves created the guest list specifically to include the descendants of five members of Vannacutt's staff who didn't die in the long-ago fire. Also, it is revealed that Evelyn and Blackburn are working together to bring down Stephen. Evelyn then kills Blackburn and uses his body to frame Stephen. Sara comes across an incoherent Stephen in the basement, and believing that he is Blackburn's murderer, shoots him when he approaches her. After the others return upstairs, Evelyn approaches Stephen to gloat, and Stephen, protected by a bullet-proof vest, attempts to kill Evelyn. The two scuffle and accidentally unleash the Darkness of the house when he throws her through a decayed door. The Darkness is a dark, shape-shifting creature composed of the spirits in the house; this force pursues and tries to kill the remaining guests. It starts by assimilating and corroding Evelyn into itself, killing her while Price watches in horror. The Darkness reveals that the souls that comprise it want to feed on all those "who are responsible". Upstairs, Pritchett, Eddie and Sara are trying to open one of the iron gates on the windows when they hear Price's screams from down the hall. Pritchett investigates, and The Darkness kills him while Price temporarily evades it. Price runs through the hall while Sara and Eddie follow. He figures that the only way to get out is to go to the attic and try to escape through there. Price runs ahead of them to find an escape route while Sara and Eddie stay behind. The Darkness seeps through the house and tries to kill them. As they are running up the stairs to the attic, Sara trips, and the Darkness uses Melissa's form to try to lure her to it. Price by then has activated a pulley that reveals an opening in the window of the attic. Eddie and Sara arrive in the attic, while the Darkness seeps up the cracks of the wooden floor. Price sacrifices himself to give Sara time to escape, but the Darkness then severs the rope holding the iron gate, trapping Eddie inside. When The Darkness confronts Eddie about his ancestor's actions, Eddie screams that he was actually adopted. Pritchett's ghost appears and opens the iron gate, and Eddie escapes. Pritchett's ghost and the Darkness then both fade away. As Sara and Eddie sit in exhaustion over the night's events, they notice an envelope halfway through the gate. It contains five checks for $1 million each. In an epilogue, a film is shown with the patients torturing Evelyn and Price in what appears to be "the other side".